This is the Executive Power Brand Insights Blog—the place for visionary, gutsy, ethical innovators, movers, and shakers!

Practical, pithy, cutting-edge, and a
bit irreverent—this blog is all about what you need to know NOW in executive and rising
star careering. You'll learn what works today to propel careers facing chaotic, constant, accelerating change. You'll rise faster in the corporate jungle—without becoming a shark or a suit.

I invite you to explore the Insights Blog, and the Executive Power Brand website and video library for tips and services specific to the unique needs of senior executives and rising stars.

Did you leave your corporate job to follow the siren-song of entrepreneurship - by choice, or by necessity after job loss (not uncommon today!)? Are you glad you did most days?

Or are you like some who begin to feel the pull of a corporate job, a “steady” paycheck, and benefits? Are you just weary and/or bored by running your company? Or, have you sold a successful venture and find yourself in search of a new position?

If you are like many entrepreneurs in transition you are likely in your prime working years, have significant accomplishments, and would be a top-performer in a corporate setting.

And if you are like many entrepreneurs in transition you are finding it surprisingly difficult to get traction in today’s job market, to obtain interviews, and to secure offers.

Many companies are looking for 100%+ fit, won’t hire “outside of the box,” and don’t know how to translate entrepreneurial accomplishments into corporate terms. These are tough challenges, yet you can overcome them with the same creativity and drive you’ve brought to everything you do.

This seismic shift has left even the most accomplished top talent feeling a bit lost in the present and thoroughly uneasy about the future.

In this volatile climate it's tempting to change who you are—to become who you think the market needs you to be—so you can protect your current job or secure a new position.

But changing your personal brand is a "no can do"—because your personal brand is who you are!

However, you can change your executive brand—what you are known for; what your personal brand looks like when you take it to work and the perceived value
attached to that executive brand (I call it your Why-Buy-ROITM).

To retool your executive brand you need to ditch, dare, and do!

DITCH: Understand your brand and the market—what the market needs now and what in your executive tool kit of ROI contribution intersects with that need. Then shatter old mindsets that aren't working!

DARE: Dare to have passion! Dare to take risks. When you take risks based upon passion and what the market needs, your executive rebranding puts you in your zone, in your sweet spot.

DO: Build and maintain focus. Focus is about staying on your new course
every day and doing what needs to be done to build your new executive brand presence.

5. Stop being safe (DITCH). Get passionate about evangelizing your new message (DARE). If you can’t
be passionate about it you may not yet have reached the clarity of a
deeply visceral and valuable brand—keep working for that “eureka” feeling that tells
you you’re there (DO).

6. Create a strategic plan and timeline for maximizing your
exposure as your new brand (DO). If you are employed, don't forget that you need to do this within your company as well as in the marketplace (DARE).

9. You can't be branded and be all things to all people (DITCH) so if you decide to do something off-brand understand the consequences. A muddy brand dilutes your impact, confuses your stakeholders, and erodes confidence—your own and that of the marketplace. Honestly, it's not worth it. Turn it down (DARE)!

10. Educate your "personal board of directors" as to your new direction—get some passionate advocates working with you (DO).

11. Stop going it alone (DITCH)! Give to get! Be open and generous with “on brand” knowledge
and help—the "career karma" William Arruda and Kirsten Dixson talk
about in Career Distinction doesn’t happen in a vacuum—and it feels really good to help others while building a nest-egg of career capital (DO).

12. Embrace the knowledge that building, strengthening,
and refining an authentic and valuable executive brand
never ends—it's an evolving and exciting continuum that helps you rise faster, earn more, have fun, and change the world (DITCH. DARE. DO!).

The career communications (career comm) that brand-aware executives need today—like branded bios, LinkedIn profiles, leadership briefs, letters, and branded resumes—look very different than the traditional "job graveyard" resumes still being used by most executives.

Your career communications must adapt to new market conditions, and the new ways career value has to be communicated!

The Internet and texting have changed career comm dramatically...

...because they have accustomed people to read and absorb in bursts. We're now so used to short paragraphs surrounded by white space that a paragraph longer than several lines feels cumbersome. Concise writing, quick reads, and critical content mapped exactly to the target employer/industry are what's needed—and how the best career comm has adapted.

Just about anyone can write a “job graveyard” document (also known as a chronological “responsible for” resume). But NOT everyone can write a career marketing brief (also known as a branded resume) and a suite of branded career communications. And you can bet that kind of work won't be done by an outplacement firm or volume shop because it takes so much time to get it right.

The short pithy bio, resume, or cover letters that work today look simple.

Looks can be deceiving! Each one can be fully read in a few minutes—and it probably took 20+ hours to research and strategize, write and edit, polish and review, and re-edit and set. Great coaches are pros at helping you through this very important process—working with you to identify strengths, personal brand, value proposition, and accomplishments (and then dumping the ones that won't work to make a case for promotion or employment in the your target role or industry). The process is as important as the career comm deliverables because the intake process preps you to know all of the above.

And if you listen to LIVE to our special interview at noon eastern TODAY you might just win a prize; we'll be giving them out during the hour. Click here for details.

SO here's what to do...

1. Buy the book on Amazon then go to DitchDareDo.com and enter your contact information and order number to obtain access to the gifts download page. It's that simple!

2. And join us for our "virtual launch party interview," today at noon eastern time as Susan Whitcomb, noted career author and CEO of The Academies interviews us. You'll learn about "ditching, daring, and doing" for career success and joy, and learn how you can fit it in in just 9-minutes-a-day. And don't forget to listen live to be eligable for prizes!

Why care about Ditch. Dare. Do!?

In today's new world of work
every executive is a contract player, every company needs strongly branded
employees, and no one has any time. Traditional career management hasn't caught
up; but the new guidebook hasn't been written—until now—with the release
of Ditch. Dare. Do!3D Personal Branding for Executives.

My colleague Jason Alba had a thought provoking post over at the JibberJobber blog a number of years back, that still resonantes with me today.

He spoke of a VP he met on a trip - they discussed how difficult it is to have been fired and to then enter a new job with any kind of loyalty. Jason said he didn't think he could have that kind of loyalty again. The VP said, 'Sure you will have loyalty. But you’ll be cautiously optimistic.'

I think "cautious optimism" is a great response to a job market in flux. With C-level tenures shrinking to three years and under (CMOs are trending at just about 18 months!) loyalty tempered with cautious optimism for the length of employment sounds just about right.

I’ve had inspiring news from an experienced executive client with whom I’ve done personal branding and resume creation. She was excited to tell me that she was recently accepted into a highly-selective program at a major university – a program designed to help women executives create viable new businesses in technology.

I am surprised, yet not surprised. Through our branding work we discovered that she’d always been an ‘intrapreneur’ – an entrepreneur within organizations. My client was the person you could call upon to get any mission critical project done, in any part of the organization. Whatever needed doing, she could make it happen.

Her company was sold and she took a buy-out. She searched, and had offers, but she found it difficult to replicate the culture that had allowed her the intrapreneurial freedom and breadth of responsibility she craved. Disheartened, she wondered if she’d have to settle for a job that was just not her ideal. That’s when she discovered the university program.

What Deb Dib's clients are saying

I just read the branding bio. It‘s all me, I can’t believe it. You listen well and string things together beautifully. I even got a call back today from a recruiter for a Fortune 500 company who just got your resume.

- publishing industry expert and C-level executive

My final offer from my current company also included a five-figure signing bonus which, I can guarantee you, would not have been offered if I had not utilized your services. Your services paid for themselves many times over even before I started my new job!

- senior-level global finance expert

Thank you for the rigor of your process of developing a branded resume. I think the effort that went into the self-reflection helped elevate my confidence level to both land the contract... and to then land Coke as the first client of XXX Development Group.

-major commercial real estate developer, consultant, and entrepreneur

Thank you for the branding bio. It was so much more than I could have done myself and surpassed what I had thought to get.

- senior level IBM executive and international business consultant

This exercise has certainly helped me gather my thoughts about an aspect of my career for which I was not consciously aware... Thanks for the valued support.